The underside of psychotherapy: Confronting hateful feelings toward clients.

Mehlman, Elizabeth; Glickauf‐Hughes, Cheryl

doi:10.1037/0033-3204.31.3.434

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Furthermore, these results suggest that, as therapists progress through the various stages of training and practice, they become more comfortable with their emotional reactions to patients. This is critical, for unless CT feelings are "confronted, understood, and therapeutically managed" (Mehlman & Glickauf-Hughes, 1994, p. 434) therapeutic progress is likely to be impeded; that is, unacknowledged or denied CT issues may cause therapeutic impasses or even engender therapeutic failure (McClure & Hodge, 1987; McHenry, 1994). Thus, supervisors may do well to reassure trainees that, over time, they are likely to feel far more at ease in performing clinical work and to note that their acknowledgment of CT feelings and reactions, including those that are shameful and hateful, is likely to facilitate therapeutic progress.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of therapist experience and patient diagnosis on countertransference.

Brody¹,

Farber²

1996

Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training

102

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This study investigated the effects of therapist experience and patient diagnosis on countertransference. A total of 336 therapists completed questionnaires that assessed attitudes regarding emotional reactions in treatment (Experience and Attitude Scale) and reactions to vignettes describing depressed, borderline, and schizophrenic patients (Vignette Rating Scale). Results indicated that, in comparison to experienced clinicians, students and interns!ABDs are more likely to regret saying things to patients, and feel that their emotions are too strong, too frequent, and need to be defended against. Patient diagnosis was found to be significantly related to therapist ratings on 19 of the 20 items on the VRS, with borderline patients evoking the greatest degree of anger and irritation and the least degree of liking, empathy, and nurturance. While there are numerous definitions of countertransference (CT), virtually all emphasize the feelings or conflicts aroused in therapists as they work with patients. Homqvist and Armelius (1996) have suggested that CT has three distinct Based on a paper presented at the Annual Convention, APA, New Yoik, August, 1995.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of therapist experience and patient diagnosis on countertransference.

Brody¹,

Farber²

1996

Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training

102

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“…Winnicott (1949) believed it useful for therapists to communicate what patients stirred in them when patients had overcome many of their problems and were mature enough to hear these painful affective realities. Others (e.g., Mehlman & Glickauf-Hughes, 1994)…”

Section: Hate In the Countertransferencementioning

confidence: 99%

Inner experience and the good therapist.

Gelso

Pérez‐Rojas

2017

How and Why Are Some Therapists Better Than Others?: Understanding Therapist Effects.

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The premise of this chapter is that the therapist's inner experience matters considerably when providing psychotherapy. It has a major and farreaching effect on what transpires in psychotherapy, how the work goes, and the extent to which the treatment is successful. Similarly, effective therapy of all persuasions is not simply a matter of the skilled application of techniques (e.g., reflection of the patient's feelings, interpretations, systematic desensitization) but also the therapist's inner experience, which impacts not only what techniques are chosen but also how they are applied. To use the technique of interpretation as an example, the tone, duration, content, depth, timing, and ultimately, the effectiveness of an interpretation will depend importantly on what the therapist is feeling and thinking about a patient and himself or herself at the moment of that interpretation, and probably at other moments, as well.Our focus in this chapter is twofold. First, we explore the inner experience of the good (i.e., effective) psychotherapist. The current wealth of INNER EXPERIENCE AND THE GOOD THERAPIST

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“…In their discussion of therapists ' hateful feelings toward patients, Mehlman and Glickhauf-Hughes (1994) suggest that the paucity of references to this eventuality may be due to a tendency to merely interpret intense, diffi cult experiences in therapy in terms of the patient ' s disturbed manner of relating and individual psychopathology. Once having schematized the " problem " in this way, it becomes easy to defensively conclude that one ' s countertransference feelings are an irrelevancy, and not an issue in the understanding or handling of the case.…”

Section: Attribution Theory Definedmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…This paper emphasizes how important it is to include, at the very outset of any candidate ' s training, the investigation of their own personal responses to the patient (be it appearance, behavior, personality, history). Although this requisite has been addressed mostly within psychoanalytic writings, the phenomenon at issue is not exclusively encountered by psychodynamic or analytic clinicians engaging in long-term psychotherapy ( Mehlman and Glickhauf-Hughes, 1994 ). Regardless of one ' s treatment approach or orientation and probably from the earliest moments of treatment contact, the psychotherapist is likely to experience emotional responses toward the patient as a natural consequence of being the primary object of the patient ' s loving or hateful feelings and of being human.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

The Crossroads of Countertransference and Attribution Theory: Reinventing Clinical Training within an Evidence-Based Treatment World

Lewis¹

2009

Am J Psychoanal

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Social Psychological research on Person Perception/Attribution Theory has concluded that an individual responds to interpersonal situations based upon their interpretation of the "nature" of that situation. For example, physically attractive people are often attributed niceness and capableness even without any basis in reality. The observer, guided by percepts cum attributions, may treat the attractive participant "as though" these qualities are about them rather than about the observer's internal bias. In psychoanalysis, this social phenomenon takes on individual meaning as countertransference. Therapists seem to experience irrational feelings during the psychotherapy exchange, which remain, whether or not the therapist is conscious of these responses or whether their technical objective includes or ignores their own transference. The attributional tendency to act upon these feelings "as though" they were wholly about the patient may lead to therapeutic disasters. Therefore, clinical training of psychotherapists needs the early inclusion of this concept to prevent subsequent dogmatic and untherapeutic attitudes. This paper will discuss the possibility of disarming the damage rendered by medicalized parsimonious "healing" and the latest fashion, Evidence-Based Treatment, via a translation of assumedly unmeasurable psychoanalytic tenets into multiply measured, investigated areas of social research.

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The underside of psychotherapy: Confronting hateful feelings toward clients.

Cited by 8 publications

References 12 publications

The effects of therapist experience and patient diagnosis on countertransference.

The effects of therapist experience and patient diagnosis on countertransference.

Inner experience and the good therapist.

The Crossroads of Countertransference and Attribution Theory: Reinventing Clinical Training within an Evidence-Based Treatment World

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